A Ukrainian airstrike on an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea last weekend has heightened tensions between the two countries and highlighted growing tensions between the two warring parties.
Iran has vowed to respond to Saturday’s attack, which it said was against a commercial ship that killed a sailor. Ukraine said the ship was carrying troops between Iran and Russia.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday he called his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi for a “frank discussion” and stressed the need to “avoid unnecessary escalation.”
“Our aim is to fight Russian violence, which is the cause of all incidents, and Russia is fully responsible for all conflicts and accidents,” Sybiha wrote to X.
Araghchi said Sybiha told him the strike was “unintentional” but said “there must be compensation for the loss.”
The call came a day after Sybiha, in response to Tehran’s vows of retaliation, said Iran “has no intention of making itself a victim” while continuing to “directly align with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”
Iran has been accused for years of supplying Russia with short-range missiles and drone technology used by Russian forces against Ukraine. Canada has sanctioned Iranian businesses it has accused of facilitating the production and transfer of such weapons to Russia.
That aid now goes both ways, Ukraine says, as Iran fights the United States and Israel in their separate wars.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Sunday that Russia was helping Iran by capturing satellite images of US bases in the Gulf region that were later revealed to Iran. He said there was a “clear connection” between the Russian photos and subsequent strikes on Iran this month.
“The intention is clear,” said Zelenskyy. “None of us in the world should ignore one simple truth: evil is always looking for ways to make things worse and spread.”
The Institute for the Study of War made a similar assessment that Russia is helping Iran with precision targeting, citing US media reports and European officials.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday met privately with US President Donald Trump while he was in Washington at the funeral of US Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. The president of Ukraine said on X that he and Trump discussed the production of Patriot interceptor missiles and the resumption of peace talks, but did not say whether the alleged aid to Iran was raised.
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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week widely acknowledged that Russia and China are “doing some of the things Iran is doing” in its war with the US.
On Monday, however, Trump downplayed any impact Russia’s aid could have had on the war.
“I don’t think they were doing it, not at a high level,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way to Michigan. “And if they did, it would have a huge impact.”
However, he said he would raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump on Friday told reporters that both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had personally assured him that they were not “offering” weapons or providing weapons to Iran, and “I trust them.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday on Telegram that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his “sincere condolences” over the death of the Iranian sailor in a phone call with Araghchi and condemned the “reckless actions of the Kiev regime.”
Ukraine has sought to portray Iran and Russia as a joint threat to the US It has also provided anti-drone technology and military technology to the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, to protect against Iranian attacks.
Andrew Rasiulis, a former National Defense Department official and military analyst, said in an interview that Ukraine’s strike on an Iranian cargo ship may have been an attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration.
“It doesn’t move the military needle, but it creates politics,” he said. “It puts Ukraine on the radar, furthers its political agenda … and shows Ukrainian technology and drones: ‘Look what we can do.’
Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said Sunday on X that the attack on Ukraine “WILL NOT BE ANSWERED.” Although he softened his tongue after his phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Sybiha on Tuesday, he insisted that an answer would come.
“Iran also does not want to expand, but it has made it clear that any attack on our citizens or our interests is unacceptable,” Araghchi said.
Rasiulis said any Iranian response would likely be proportionate and non-proliferative, meaning it would be small and similar to Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in the Gulf region.
He doubted that such a response would be enough to draw in NATO, which has avoided aligning itself with the US and Israel’s war on Iran.
“Nobody here wants to see a big, fruitless world war,” he said. “The Americans don’t want it, the Russians don’t want it, the Iranians don’t want it.
“Even the Ukrainians, I don’t think they want a full-scale war, they just want to curry favor with the US, to get the US to give them more things so they can defeat the Russians. But that’s kind of it, really.”
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